Stiles doesn't know how it happens, really. He actually, honestly has not a single freaking clue.
One moment he's spending his Saturday noon playing video games (on his own because Scott's finally gotten Allison to agree to a date, to taste the waters, see if there's any way to salvage their relationship); the next one, there's someone ringing the doorbell.
And it turns out that there are four very miserable looking werewolves on the other side of the door, all haggard and pale and...
"Wolfsbane?" He asks in a scared little exhale to Derek, who looks the worst amongst them (and also considerably reluctant to even be standing there), ineffectively trying to grab all of them at once and get them inside. "Should I get bullets? Should I call Deaton? Or Scott?"
Once he gets them all past the threshold in a move worthy of an octopus (and thank the powers that be that dad will most likely be over at the station all day with the new deputies), he looks at them in much more careful detail, in search of- well, any sign of something remotely life threatening.
And that's when he notices the runny noses and flushed cheeks on otherwise pale faces.
"No way."
Stiles shouldn't laugh. Okay, no, scratch that. He should. Loudly and until he gets karma cramps all over his belly.
Because he seriously struggles to be an alright guy (on top of, you know, struggling to stay alive along everyone else), but there are some things that are priceless, kindness be a little damned.
And Derek Hale with a stuffy nose, sitting on his couch with one of his old scratchy blankets? Flushed with fever and still scowling, while trying to stop mucus from running all over his face?
Definitely qualifies. Over qualifies, even.
So he does laugh, obnoxiously.
Up till Derek throws a balled up tissue paper at his face with his unfair werewolf-y accuracy and says "shut up, Stiles" in a nasal voice so hilarious it makes him wheeze.
"Oh, man. Oh, man, I'm sorry but this is so, so good."
"No, fuck you, it isn't!" Erica yells at him, from where she is surely still sprawled all over his bed, upstairs. "Fuck you, this sucks. I didn't sign up for this."
"I personally find this an improvement over hunters, kanimas, and Alpha packs." Chimes in Boyd, coming out of the kitchen with a steaming mug of Stiles' kickass special flu soup. The only apparent signs of illness on him being the fine sheen of sweat on his face and neck and the little damp spots under his arms. "At least this won't kill us."
Isaac, who is lying down on the floor while with pillows and almost everything Stiles could find inside the linen closet, and is also wearing two pairs of everything (including two of Stiles' favorite hoodies- and fuck werewolves, he'll make them pay for a new laundry detergent after this), hums in agreement, moving his head from one of the pillows to press his red cheek against the cold floor.
"Besides," he adds, voice muffled by the floor and the tiniest bit distorted by illness. "It's not like we've never been sick before."
Boyd nods, taking a sip from his mug; he's probably only having the broth. He's learnt in the last few hours that he likes that the best, while Isaac prefers the vegetables, and Erica favors the scattered chicken pieces.
He'd never imagined werewolves would be picky eaters. But then again, these three are still more human than werewolves, having only been bitten recently and all.
That reminds him...
"Derek?" He looks at the Alpha, who's closed his eyes (and would probably have closed his ears, given the opportunity) in an effort to shut them all out, and is still looking the most miserable.
"What?"
"You've never been sick, right?"
Derek doesn't answer but there's no need, because now that Stiles has gotten past the point of flipping out and then of making fun of this, he can clearly remember that werewolves are supposed to have insane immune systems meant to be completely foolproof (unless there's wolfsbane involved, but that's a whole other murdering kettle of fish).
And Derek's a born werewolf. So.
"Dude, you haven't. This is the very first time you've been sick. In a human, non life-threatening way that doesn't include toxic flowers."
Boyd and Isaac are staring at Derek now, as if in a new light. It makes him feel a little better that he's not the only one who's forgotten about this.
"Yes, yes it is. Are you happy? Now shut up, or leave me alone. My head is pounding and you're just making it worse."
"What? No dude, no way. You need to experience the whole 'being pampered and taken care of' part of being sick. It's, like, the only bright side of the whole ordeal." He tugs the blanket away from Derek's clammy hands, trying to suppress the fact he's just told Derek that he'll pamper him. "Erica! I'm gonna need you to move the guest room's bed!"
"What? Why? I called dibs on it!"
"And that's very mature of you, really. But we've got a VIP here," he tugs at Derek's arm, trying to make him stand up. "Which is a Very Important Patient."
"Oh my God, you're kicking me out of your bed to play den mother to the Alpha? Are you for real?"
"Hey, don't say it like it's a bad thing! You all came here for a reason! I bet you totally dig me taking care of you."
"Well, yes. But that's because you already seem committed to play the parental role with Boyd, Isaac and me. And that's cool because you usually do a better job than our actual, real parental figures. It's a bizarrely soothing and endearing personal trait of yours." She cuts herself to cough a few times. "Derek, on the other hand, may want you to occupy another role entirely on his life, you know?" She concludes, with as sultry a voice as she can manage after almost coughing up a lung.
Just as he's about to ask her what the hell she's talking about (and also tell her he doesn't have a 'bizarrely soothing and endearing' anything, thank you very much), Derek's standing up on his own and gritting out, "what Derek wants is for you to stop talking nonsense and move to the guest room already."
Stuffy nose and all, he still sounds pretty intimidating, Stiles will give him that.
"I heard that." Grits out Derek, then, taking the blanket out of Stiles' hands (rude, rude werewolf that isn't housebroken) and goes to take the stairs with some uncharacteristic difficulty.
"But I didn't. What did she say?"
"Masochistic party pooper." Answers Boyd, from where he's face planted (sans mug, thankfully) on Derek's vacant spot and half curled himself into a fetal position to fit, and is surreptitiously trying to steal one of Isaac's blankets.
Derek lies down on his bed and burrows his face on one of his pillows, snuffling a little.
It's maybe kind of adorable.
"You're gonna get weresnot all over my pillowcase. I'm already regretting this."
... But then, that's also mucus. Spreading all over his pillow.
"See? I wasn't blowing my nose all over your bed." Erica contributes from the guest room.
"Erica, shut up." Says Derek, making her chuckle in glee.
"Holy mother of- is this thing broken?" He squints at the thermometer; closes his eyes, opens them again; he even shakes it a bit, but the numbers remain the same, regardless.
He gives up and shoves it on Derek's face.
"Dude, is this right?"
Derek has a bit of a hard time focusing on the thermometer, but once he's able to inspect it, he grumbles, "It's a little higher than it should be."
"A little? What? At this temperature your brain should start boiling!"
"Werewolves run at a higher body temperature."
"Oh. Oh, well, that explains a few things."
He's very tempted to add 'like why all of you are so distressingly hot', but refrains from it on the ground that he doubts Derek's in a position to truly appreciate his awesome puns.
"D'you know what feels amazing when you're sick?" He exclaims, taking Derek's empty soup bowl from his shaky grip.
"A bullet through the brain?"
"What? No. What the fuck, Derek. Way to be drastic." He rolls his eyes at him, putting the bowl on his bedside table. "A sponge bath. I was going to say a sponge bath." Derek's eyebrows do a sort of ritual dance at his words, over dark feverish eyes. "I don't know what you're saying, I'm not fluent in Eyebrow-ish."
The sponge bath thing starts, quite frankly, better than planned. There's no blood, no maiming, no eyes being gouged out of their sockets, no nothing that will leave Stiles in wheelchair or with a few less limbs or prosthetics or...
Or.
There's a bit of Stiles tripping over his own feet on the way to Derek, who's lying on like half a dozen fluffy towels appearing absurdly put out, and ending up spilling half the basin's content of faintly soapy water over one of Derek's legs and the edge of the bed.
But, well, that's, um, that's not that bad, right?
Derek doesn't even threaten to rip his throat with his teeth, limits himself to a put upon sigh.
Then again, that might be because he's burning up and probably aching everywhere.
Whatever.
After that, it all starts going fairly well.
He gets Derek to relax by the time he's sponging his chest and abdominal area, hears him periodically making these tiny groans and throaty sounds that on anybody else could be taken as clear signs of pleasure.
By the time he has to do Derek's back, however, he's not all that sure why he thought this was a good idea at all.
Derek starts making these rumbling noises that Stiles tries very hard not to notice in an untoward way, but ultimately can't, because he's all of seventeen, painfully virgin, and sort of awfully attracted to Derek, who's artfully built, like an Adonis or a Greek god, and lying on his boxers on Stiles' bed, dripping wet, and sounding a whimper away from one of his Hall-of-Fame wet dreams.
And everything sucks, this wasn't part of the plan. Te plan was to, to do this for Derek, to help him along the course of this.
Not to get inappropriately aroused.
Fuck everything.
Man, he feels kind of creepy now.
"Stiles, shut up," Derek interrupts then, voicing his thoughts in a dry tone. "You're making the headache come back."
"What? Bull! I'm not even talking, man."
"Shut your brain up, then."
"Feverish you is hilarious. A true comedian." He dips the sponge in the basin, and keeps trailing Derek's spine. "That doesn't even make sense, though, y'know."
He finishes trailing the sponge all the way to Derek's lower back, working incredibly hard to keep his hands steady.
"I'm doing your legs now."
He is such a glutton for punishment.
After the sponge bath Derek falls into a fretful sleep that is not ideal, but Stiles guesses is as good as he'll get, so he takes it and spends about an hour and a half making a meal that's both sufficiently nutritious for sick growing werewolves and still low in sodium and fit to feed to his dad; and checking up on them all from time to time.
Erica's a little fussy (not that he'd ever, ever, ever even imply that aloud), yet Stiles suspects that that's less due to the actual illness and more due to the fact that she can, and because it deeply amuses her to have him at her beck and call.
(His theory is proven completely right by her answering delighted grin when he brings her a steaming mug -his favorite Batman one, at that- of peppermint tea with honey and a plate of his favorite chocolate chip cookies, that shows how entirely too pleased with herself she is.)
Wen he comes back to his room to check up on Derek, carrying a small plastic tub of ice cream and two spoons, he finds the Alpha lying on his side, staring at the general direction of the door with an expression Stiles can't decipher. A soft furrow of his brows, a faint purse of his lips, a turmoil in his eyes.
"Hey." He blurts out, feeling a little warm under Derek's scrutinizing gaze, a little manic. "You're awake. That's great man."
"I can't smell your scent." Derek grumbles, out of nowhere, so low and quiet that it almost gets drowned in the stillness of the house. "I knew it was you because of your heartbeat, the weight of your steps, the stupid song you were humming under your breath. But I couldn't get a hold of your scent."
He sets the ice cream container on his bedside table and stays still next to the bed, looking at the Alpha, who has his eyes firmly locked on him, in a tremendously unnerving manner.
'I don't know what to say to that?' seems like the wrong thing to say, but he is at such a loss for words, like nothing else can scratch at the surface of his brain, that that's what he ends up voicing.
"That must be a first." Derek intones, getting on his back and closing his eyes.
"Oh, screw you, Sourwolf. I'm so eating the ice cream I brought on my own now."
Maybe Stiles hallucinates, right then, because he could swear that there's this little tug at the corners of Derek's lips that could very well pass as a smile.
That one moment is the calm before the storm, Derek sort of pliant and normal in all but sour behaviour, body peacefully recovering.
Until Stiles comes up with dinner after having fed the betas, and sees that Derek's fever has spiked up again, this time with such a vengeance that Stiles thinks that Derek might actually be burning up, and not in a figurative way.
He calls Deaton to ask for what the hell to do, because he's freaking the hell out, but he still has enough presence of mind to remember that Ms. McCall's told him he's not supposed to give either hot or cold baths to lower a dangerous fever outside of s hospital for risk of the patient fainting or going into shock (and God bless his natural curiosity), but that leaves him with exactly zero options that he can think of, as he can't really take Derek to the hospital, and it would be mostly useless to give him any medication.
"Stiles, you need to keep doing what you've been doing up to this point." Is Deaton's way too calm advice. Order. Something. "Give him plenty of fluids, maybe give him a lukewarm bath. And relax. He'll be okay. They'll all be okay."
Okay, okay then. He can do this.
"Up, up, up we go, big guy."
You know what tends to come hand in hand with elevated body temperatures?
Delirium.
(And seizures, he's read somewhere, but thank everything to ever exist that those aren't happening.)
"I had a little sister, four years younger than me." Starts Derek as soon as Stiles is done helping him inside of the tub. "She was born human. She used to get sick all the time."
Stiles' body freezes, eyes wide, mouth half open.
"Mom used to sit by her bed and read her stories from an old fairy-tales book that had been grandma's when she was a child. The pages smelt like grass and vanilla. Most old books' pages smell like grass and vanilla." He cuts himself for about a second and then carries on. "Emma, that was my sister's name, liked to make the pack do all kinds of things for her, the little brat. She had Laura and uncle Peter falling all over themselves to cater to all of her whims."
It's the nostalgic, loving tinge to his words that stabs him right in the chest that brings Stiles back to action.
"Um, buddy, you probably shouldn't be talking right now, okay?"
The look on Derek's face right about kills him, with its deep pain, and the haunted shadows in his eyes, and Stiles can tell that this must be the first time in who knows how long that Derek's gotten something regarding his family out of his chest, that it's the first time he's chosen to talk about them.
That's exactly why he can't let him go on. Can't let him make this enormous choice when he is in clearly not a fit state to make it. Even though the selfish asshole in him wants Derek's stories with an insatiable hunger, despite the pain.
He just knows that Derek wouldn't want to share his past like this, just like he knows for a fact that he wouldn't want it if it were him, delirious and going on about memories of his mother.
So he lets Derek look at him with profoundly hurt eyes (and he knows how he just sounded, but it still stings) and soldiers on, sitting on the toilet and filling the silence now and again with a few comments about Jackson and Scott, who are apparently sick as well, and enjoying Lydia and Allison's nurturing care. And how he'd kill to see what Lydia's version of 'nurturing care' entails.
Derek's fever breaks fifteen minutes later, and Stiles helps him dry himself and get back to bed.
The thing is: the slightly anguished look hasn't left his face, and although he is a naturally silent and brooding type, there's something inexplicably heavier in this particular lack of words.
Stiles feels like a dick.
That's the only somewhat reasonable explanation he has for what he says next to a bedridden Derek.
"I don't think I have any story books left from my childhood, but I could... I don't know. Maybe read you one of my comic books?" He walks over to his bookcase, pointedly looking for something not Batman. "The Runaways, maybe?"
He takes his hardcover copy of volume one and turns back to Derek, who's looking at him with his eyebrows a bit raised.
"Or I could just let you sleep, never mind."
At that Derek's eyebrows do one of their complicated dance numbers.
"No, I... Want you to. I want you to read to me. Please."
"O...kay, then."
He grabs his desk chair, drags it next to the bed, drops himself on it unceremoniously with the book and starts with "Pride and Joy. Chapter one", struggling for the first three pages to find a position that both lets Derek see the illustrations and doesn't kill his back (or eyesight).
He reads until Derek falls asleep on "Teenage Wasteland. Chapter one".
"Know what?" He whispers as he gets up from the chair. "Like this you look younger." He puts the comic book back on its shelf. "And you're much nicer than you let on."
When he's about to close the door behind him, his heart stops for a minute or so when he hears Derek talking.
"Thank you, for taking care of us." And lower, a few seconds later. "And you're nicer, too."
After that he falls asleep on his dad's bed, trying to come up with a suitable excuse for when his dad inevitably comes back home and finds the house invaded by three sick teenagers and a sick person of interest well over his teens.
It doesn't happen.
The next morning he wakes up on his bed, fully dressed for the shoes and socks, to the sounds of his dad making breakfast, whistling a Creedence Clearwater Revival song.
There's a note on his bedside table.
'Emma would have liked you.
P.S.: The kids say thank you, too.'